INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the grey space in between.
Today, we&re digging
into a host of data concerning the East Coast venture capital scene, specifically looking into the performance of its two key startup
markets.
It 12 degrees Fahrenheit as I write this in my office situated between Boston and New York City — a perfect vantage point for
studying these vibrant tech ecosystems
Let see what the data tells us.
The information we&re examining today comes from White Star Capital (often via CBInsights), a venture
capital firm that describes itself as &transatlantic& and takes part in seed, Series A and Series B rounds around the globe
The group last raised a $180 million fund that TechCrunch covered here, noting at the time that capital pool was &oversubscribed from an
initial target of $140 million& and would be invested into &around 20 new companies from the new fund, writing opening cheques of between $1
million and $6 million.&
With boots on the ground in New York, White Star cares about the East Coast, so the fund put dossier on the region
What it includes, however, is.
We&ll start with NYC and its surprising 2019 before turning to Boston, digging into its super-giant venture
totals and hearing from Founder Collective Eric Paley on the state of things in urban Massachusetts.
New York City
White Star report details
record-breaking figures for NYC current year
Off of effectively flat deal volume (New York City sees around 775 venture deals per year at the moment, or a little more than two per day),
the overgrown town should set record venture dollar volume in 2019.
Observe the following, astounding chart detailing the abnormality of
2019 from a comparative venture dollar perspective:
By smashing 2017 local maximum, 2019 appears set to crush the city record — and rich
— venture investment totals
The graphic also manages to point out (somewhat embarrassingly) that Gotham will manage to best a number of European countries& aggregate
venture dollar investments by itself this year.
That is a useful bit of context as in the United States, New York City is always Number Two
But, this chart argues, being number two in the number-one market is still a hell of a lot of capital.
Putting New York City venture into
even sharper comparative perspective, observe the following table:
